Bob Baker's Book Promotion Blog

Amazon Shocker! How to Link Multiple Editions of Your Book

Have you ever wondered what happens when you publish a new, revised edition of your book (with a new ISBN) and make it available on Amazon?

How will customers find the latest version? If someone finds the listing for the previous edition, how will they know a new one even exists?

Well, a month ago I was scratching my head with the same questions regarding the new version of my "Guerrilla Music Marketing Handbook." It's the title I'm best known for among my target audience. It's used in many music business courses around the world.

So it was very important to me that people searching Amazon for it found the new 2013 version and not the old 2007 version. But how could I make that happen?

I'm thrilled to say, the solution was surprisingly easy.

First, I took the ingenious step of ... wait for it ... Googling for the answer. Very quickly I found this page on Amazon, which gives specific instructions on where to go and what to do.

It's important to note that you must have an Amazon Author Central account in order to access this feature. Any author or publisher who has a book available on Amazon can start one for free. Go here to register.

But here's where the real shocker came in ...

I was prepared to fill out a form and submit my information online, then wait to hear back from someone by email. I mean, we've all heard how hard it is to reach an actual human being at Amazon.

Then, on the final submission page I found an option to speak with someone on the phone immediately. In fact, it was the recommended method for contacting Amazon about this matter!

Really?

Twenty seconds later I was on the phone with a pleasant young lady who took all of my book information and was extremely helpful. Within an hour or two, the various editions of the Guerrilla Music Marketing Handbook were linked on Amazon's US site. Within a few days, they were linked on Amazon's international sites (Germany, the U.K., France, etc).

Here's the thing: Amazon won't remove a previous edition of a book from the site, even if it's out of print. One reason is to allow Marketplace merchants to sell used copies of older editions. So what they do is put a widget on the page of older versions that says "There is a newer edition of this item" with a link to the new edition.

Another cool thing Amazon does is take all the customer reviews from previous editions and adds them to the new edition page. This is fantastic, since your new book won't have to start from scratch in gaining credibility.

Say what you want about how Amazon treats bookstore retailers and traditional book publishers. But one thing is for sure from my perspective ... Amazon puts a priority on serving two types of constituents: their book-buying customers ... and authors.